Piva joins BMC Racing as director

BMC Racing continues its overhaul following a dismal Tour de France, announcing on Monday that it had signed sports director Valerio Piva.

Piva leaves the Russian Katusha squad, which encountered difficulty in securing its 2013 WorldTour racing license. He said that the three-year security of the American team made it an intriguing opportunity. With BMC Racing, Piva will rejoin Tejay van Garderen, with whom he worked at High Road Sports.

“For me, it is more interesting to have a long-term project,” Piva said in a press release. “The last two years I worked for Katusha, where I had a very good experience and result. But I want to be in a team which has the same vision as me. In the BMC Racing Team, you also have very strong and very nice riders. I know a lot of these guys. For example, I worked with Tejay van Garderen at HTC. So for me, it’s very exciting to work with a top team.”

The day after a Tour de France that saw the big-budget BMC team finish without a stage win or classification result, lead director John Lelangue left the team. Piva, who has worked with teams including T-Mobile, HTC, and Katusha since his 1991 retirement, will lend experience to a staff that includes Fabio Baldato, Jackson Stewart, Yvon Ledanois, and Max Sciandri.